Thursday, February 15, 2007

Earlier this week, we put up a story about Big 10 head honcho Jim Delaney's anti-SEC rant that he posted on the Big 10 website. Many college football fans around the country assumed it was just sour grapes on the part of Delaney in the wake of Ohio State getting ass-raped by Florida in the BCS title game.

Not so.

The MZone has learned that it wasn't the BCS embarrassment that got Jimbo's knickers in a knot. It was the fact that the SEC trumped the Big 10 in yet another head-to-head match up. Of course I'm talking about the NCAA National Mascot Hand Painting Championships held last week in Seattle.

In the four day competition, the SEC went on a tear, kicking some serious hand-puppet ass and dealing another setback to the Big 10 as the SEC took the top three spots.

In third place was the University of Alabama and their elephant mascot "Big Al" as displayed below by Brian Hannerhan, a sophomore from Mobile...

Coming in second place was the University of Florida. The Gators took second despite repeated pleas in the media by their mascot hand painting coach Manny Urbanski who said his team deserved to be the champions due to their brutal non-conference schedule against former Mascot Hand Painting title holders Tulane, BYU and Gonzaga during a three week stretch last fall.

And the 2007 NCAA National Mascot Hand Painting Championships is...

The Auburn University. This is the second year in a row the squad from Auburn has taken the crown which has led to calls by some for NMHPC officials to change the rules to prevent teams from using multiple team mascots as Auburn did again with their War Eagle and Tiger...

The Auburn team was also going to include their third mascot, the Plainsman, but nobody could figure out what the fuck that would look like.

Following the competition, Delaney said the Big 10 was at a disadvantage against the SEC because they must balance mascot hand painting skills with academics.

11 comments:

Long ago, the SEC schools (with the usual exception of Vanderbilt) adopted simple, well-known animals as their mascots - Bulldogs (2), Tigers (2), a Wildcat, Gator (not Alligator, son - Gator), an Eagle (of the War sub-genous) and an Elephant. Tennessee was left out just because, well...just because.

A rooster and a wild pig were added later for seasoning.

All of these animals are well-known and easily recognized by school children of all ages.

Now what has history dealt you in the Big 10? Sure, you've got a few of the same - Wildcat, Badger, Gopher. But you'd have a hard time explaining just what in the hell a Hawkeye is, much less paint it on someone's hand. Is it a hawk, an eye, the eye of a hawk, Alan Alda, or Natty Bumpo?

A Buckeye is common enough, I guess, but hardly the makings of inspirational hand art. Boilermakers and Spartans just don't come around in everyday discussion, and don't even get me started on a Hoosier. Even THEY don't know what a Hoosier is exactly!

And then there's the Wolverine. An animal so mean, so ferocious, and so batshit crazy that nobody wants to get within 100 miles of it in the wild, much less paint it on a hand.

No Jim, you'll never see a Wolverine in a petting zoo, and you'll probably never dominate in this all-important national competition in which simplicity and familiarity are so crucial.

Well here is some SEC news some of you may not be aware of Mitch Mustain the true Freshman QB from Arkansas that was 8-0 as a starter is at the University of Southern California this week thinking of transferring to USC. His former wide receiver from high school and Arkansas (I think his name is Damien Williams) has already transferred to USC. If he transfers he will have to sit out next year.

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